Who would’ve thought a Smash Bros. leak would turn out to be real? (pic: NeoGAF)

A massive leak of Super Smash Bros. info appears to show several new characters, including Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles and Dark Pit.

The Super Smash Bros. series attracts fake leaks and rumours like wasps to a picnic, but this latest one actually appears to be real.

It seems to have been leaked by someone at the ESRB (the American equivalent of the PEGI age-rating system) and reveals that the dog from Dog Hunt, Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles, and Bowser Jr. are all new playable characters.

There’s also Dark Pit from Kid Icarus, who is presumably a clone fighter in the vein of Dr Mario (who is only slightly different from regular Mario).

The leaks also confirms returning characters Ness from EarthBound, Ganondorf from The Legend Of Zelda (who still seems to be a clone fighter of Captain Falcon), Jigglypuff from Pokémon, Falco from Star Fox, Dr Mario, Wario, Mr. Game & Watch, and R.O.B.

That’s Bowser Jr. in his clown car (thing?) on the left

Video clips of the game were leaked alongside the images and the most convincing argument for the leaks being real is that all the original clips were quickly taken down from YouTube by Nintendo of America, which you wouldn’t think they’d bother with if they were fake. (Hopefully the video below is still working, but in the meantime these .GIFs are from the same footage.)

This leaves only a small number of non-returning characters from the previous games, namely Ice Climbers, Mewtwo, Ivysaur, Squirtle, Pichu, Lucas, Roy, Solid Snake, Wolf, and Young Link.

Many of these have equivalents in the new roster, but the more unsubstantiated side of the leak suggests that more notable veterans, such as the Ice Climbers, may be offered as downloadable content later on – alongside other brand new characters.

Shulk dukes it out with Ganondorf (we think, it’s a little hard to see)

The question of whether Solid Snake will be included probably has more to do with the fact that the character is now voiced by Kiefer Sutherland, and we can’t imagine it’s very easy to get him in to record some joke dialogue for a Nintendo fighting game.

All of the leaked information pertains to Super Smash Bros. For Nintendo 3DS only, which is due out on October 3. But although many of the stages and game modes are different it’s supposed to have the same character line-up as Super Smash Bros. For Wii U.

The Wii U game has been promised for this year, but still has no firm release date.